Another Republican victory over gays. And guys here vote for these creeps?

Sen. Constance Johnson, D-Oklahoma City, Roth’s sponsor in the Senate, was less forgiving of the decision not to move the nomination forward for an up or down vote.

“It represents a failure of leadership on the part of the Republican Party and of representative democracy in our state,” she said. “They’re turning Jim’s appointment into a political issue instead of following the process, and that’s my biggest issue with this. For us to refuse an individual the opportunity to go through that process and be vetted by that process is not how government is supposed to operate.

“We are a government of the people, by the people, for the people, and it shouldn’t be about the preferences of one person,” she said.

Scott Hamilton, executive director of Cimarron Alliance, a leading LGBT advocacy group in the state, said the decision by the Rules Committee is “another blatant example of the discrimination members of the LGBT community have to face in Oklahoma every day.

“I am beyond disappointed in the way the Senate has behaved in general, and in this instance in particular,” Hamilton said. “It’s very disappointing the senators are playing politics with someone’s life like this.

“It’s very unfortunate that in 2012 they can’t see him as a man who is talented and dedicated to the people of Oklahoma,” Hamilton said. “Instead, they’d rather focus on the one aspect of the man that makes him different from them.”

Hamilton said the concerns over Roth’s former service on the Corporation Commission were “an excuse” and “absolute nonsense.”

“It’s a smoke screen for bigotry,” Hamilton said. “It’s like veiling hatred in someone’s religion, and it’s very easy to see through, to see that this had everything to do with Mr. Roth’s sexual orientation. We don’t have to look beyond this week to see the kind of bigotry we can expect from our legislators.”